Scratch
by frozen.embers
Summary: When Edward disappears suddenly, Bella sets out to find him. Instead, she finds herself, and begins to discover the disadvantages of living in a world where nothing ever changes.
1. only i have proved me wrong

Before we begin, a few important facts:

1. I am not a fan of Twilight. I feel like this is important to know beforehand. However, I got an idea for this story and decided that it would be entertaining to write. I have no intention of disrespecting Meyer by destroying or vilifying any of her characters (besides, obviously, the villains). If you feel like I've messed up a character in a massively huge way, please tell me so that I can fix it or explain why the character is acting that way, if there is a logical explanation. Also, if I've made a glaring canon error, please point this out to me so I can fix that. Bonus: I've taken to calling Bella's daughter "Ren" because I doubt that any fully-grown woman would appreciate being called "Nessie". This story takes place fifty years after the events of Breaking Dawn.

2. This is not a romance story.

3. This site does not disable your back button. If you hate me for playing in your sandbox when I _really_ don't belong here, don't read the story.

4. Concrit is greatly appreciated.

That said, this is not a short story, but this is a short summer. I return to University in August, so past that, updates will be fewer and farther between. Should I drop this story, I'll add an addendum to this author's note. If this note doesn't tell you this is discontinued or complete, this is still in progress.

_scratch_

i. only i have proved me wrong

The bus-stop is empty. This is not surprising. Buses don't run often anymore, and people don't often ride them at one o'clock in the morning. This is precisely why I'm here -- I don't want to be stopped. I don't want to be followed. And most importantly, I don't want to be seen.

I don't have much of a plan, really. Honestly, I know I didn't think this out very well, but I got so _tired_ of planning. Everyone had their own ideas on what we should do and how we should do it, and I finally just had enough of it, and decided to strike out on my own while the others were busy poring over maps and dissecting tiny sentences to find some kind of hidden meaning. They'll chalk it up to distress -- which isn't far off the truth -- and let it go.

I fidget in my seat. I don't like being alone.

It's times like these I wish I was religious. Having something -- anything -- to pray to would be nice. Might make me feel like I was doing something other than waiting for some scary Italian bus driver show up. I have exactly 743 American dollars on my person, having misjudged plane fare, which is why I'm throwing myself on the mercy of public transport.

I keep running over Rosalie's words in my head -- _Maybe he went to Italy. The last time he left Bella, that's where he went. We should start there._

So, this is where I am. It's not much of a lead, but it's a place to start. I just wish I had a little more information.

I take a deep breath. I am perfectly capable of doing this. I survived seventeen years without Edward. I can survive until I find him again.

...But where did he _go?_ And _why?_ I can't think of any good reason. Our anniversary isn't for another five months, and my birthday has already passed, so he can't be planning something for either of those. And if he had been planning something, no one else would have been worried. If he'd been in danger, he would have said something to me -- or at least to _someone._ Carlisle, if no one else. He didn't seem preoccupied about anything before the disappearance. It's like he just... vanished, all of a sudden.

Like he was never there at all.

I can't figure it out, which is why I came here. I'm going to talk to the Volturi -- someone has to have a lead of some kind. Surely Aro...

I don't want to think about the possibility that they may _not_ be able to help me. And besides, a missing vampire is a pretty big deal, right? It's in their best interest to lend me a hand. So we all benefit.

I keep fidgeting. This seat is uncomfortable, and I'm lonely. I wish I'd thought to bring Ren with me. She's usually good at dealing with these kinds of situations. But if I'd brought Ren, then I would have had to bring Jacob, and everyone would have figured out, and then I'd either still be sitting at home (probably hearing all the reasons why this is a _really bad idea_) or it would be a Group Field Trip To Volterra!

And I'd probably still be hearing all the reasons why this is a really bad idea.

Just in Italian.

I don't need to be insulted in various languages. I need to find my husband. I also need this bus to -- finally, I hear it coming. I stand up, rummaging through my purse for the Euros I swear I grabbed from Rosalie's nightstand, so I'm not reduced to snarling at the bus driver until he waives the fee. Luckily, they have the good sense to be where I put them.

The bus driver is an elderly, smiling man, which is good -- I'd half-expected a drugged-out addict of some kind, and wasn't looking forward to arguing with someone higher than most space junk. I smile at him, and he grins absently back at me. He seems safe enough. The bus itself is mostly empty, except for one seedy-looking guy in the very back who won't stop staring at me. I take a seat near the front, and ask the driver how long to Volterra.

An hour and a half. I settle in for the wait.

...I don't like waiting.

I know I could probably have simply run the distance -- vampire stamina and all that -- but I don't want to call any undue attention to myself. I'm about to throw myself on the mercy of Aro, so breaking his rules won't win me any favors. It isn't much of a setback, really, all things considered. Just... not good on the nerves.

I try to restrain myself. Over the past fifty years, I've worked hard on controlling my strength. I've found that it's usually rather useful to be much stronger than most people, but at this moment, a nervous display of massive physical strength will put me in a highly compromising position, one I'm not prepared for. To begin with, the guy in the back would probably lose something vital to him -- I'm thinking a spine -- and the poor, sweet bus driver may not be able to stay on the road if he has to witness something like that. I don't want to hurt any of them.

I'm just not really thinking straight, and when I'm not thinking straight, I'm not good at controlling my temper. I take another deep breath. Just 77 minutes left. That's all -- 77 minutes to Volterra, and from there, it won't be hard to find Aro.

76 minutes...

I can do this. I know I can do this. I can... I draw my knees up to my chest and look out the window. It's almost ironic -- all my power, all my experience, all my influence -- it's nothing right now. I could be anyone, anywhere. Just a girl on a bus at an ungodly hour of the night. I could be the other girl in the movie, standing in the rain, watching her lover leave.

On this bus, I am not Isabella Cullen.

I'm Bella Swann, all over again. I'm the awkward teenager, away from home for the first time. I haven't missed it, not one bit.

74 minutes.

Edward... Where are you?

--

"--Which is why I need your help." I stand in front of Aro, hoping against hope that he has some kind of response. His face isn't showing much promise, though. He doesn't appear to be concerned -- does he know something I don't? Irrationally, I'm angry. He's got this look on his face like he knows exactly where Edward is, like I'm an idiot for not knowing, and -- worst of all -- like he isn't planning to tell me.

"It is not our business where your husband is," he says slowly, and I realize that he's confused. He doesn't understand why I've come to him for help!

"But a missing vampire _is_ a big deal! It's a huge deal! You have no idea where he is, he could be... he could be anywhere!"

"He hasn't done anything yet to compromise the rest of us. And he should know the rules well enough by now to know what not to do. You don't know where he is, but that doesn't mean he's _missing._"

I'm ready to tear my hair out in frustration. This can't be happening! They can't honestly be so... so... c_allous_, can they?

Oh, who am I kidding? I knew from the start they were unlikely to help. I just wanted so badly to have an ally in this. I fooled myself into thinking that they would help me out of the kindness of their hearts. It makes me angry, though. What kind of leaders are they?

"Fine," I hiss, angry, "Fine. I'll find him _myself._"

I turn on my heel and leave. As I'm on my way out, Aro calls out after me --

"I'll tell you this: He isn't in this area. I would know if he'd come within a hundred miles of us."

I don't respond. The streets are still dark, but dawn isn't far off. I'll have to find a place to stay for the day. I lean against a wall. I'm alone in a foreign country with 743 dollars to my name, no husband, and no leads. And it's probably safest to assume that I have no friends. I could easily call up Carlisle or Jasper and get them to take me home. We could start the search over -- with Italy off the list, we could brainstorm, find some other place to look -- but something in me refuses to crawl back home so soon.

My promise, spoken in anger, binds me. Not physically, but as a matter of _pride_. I don't need anyone's help to find Edward. It won't be easy, but I can do this myself, I know it. I just need a place to begin.

I find myself at a train station, looking over the times. There's a train leaving at 5:13 AM, set to arrive in Dijon at 7:45 PM. It's imperfect -- I'll have to invest in a blanket and a dimly-lit compartment -- but it should suffice. And France is a perfectly logical place to start, right? At least I'm _doing _something.

This is probably terribly dangerous, and incredibly stupid.

And at the same time, it's -- bizarrely -- kind of fun. Not the "being alone" part, but the "exploring the world" bit is. It's almost epic, in a way, like I'm a character in a movie or a book. If I must be without Edward, then I suppose this is the way to do it, not by staying at home with Ren and Esme.

I'm... hopeful. I _will_ find him. And he'll probably chastise me for being so reckless, but we'll be a family again, so it's worth it. I'll do anything to find myself back in his arms. _Whatever_ it takes.

After a hasty exchange of currency at the ticket booth, I buy a fleecy blanket at the gift shop from a sleepy cashier, and, as an afterthought, I pick up a few magazines and crosswords. I'm in for a _long_ train ride, after all. I smile and try to be friendly, but people are rarely friendly in the wee hours of the morning.

The train is far from roomy (better, I think, because no one will think to look for me on a cheap train in the middle of nowhere) and I find the smallest compartment -- the sleeper compartment -- close the blinds on the window tight, and pray for clouds. The train fills fast, but the occasional glare is more than enough to dissuade any possible companions, and besides, most people aren't looking for a bed. I curl up under the blanket and wish I could sleep. The crosswords are sitting comfortably on the seat by my head, but I don't pick them up. Before long, the train starts moving, and I relax slightly.

Finally, it occurs to me to check my phone. International service is (naturally) standard on the Cullen phones, but I've been shamelessly ignoring my cell since I turned it off at the Seattle Airport. I listen to voicemail (Alice, Esme, what appears to be a rather pissed off Jacob, Alice, Alice, Rosalie, Ren, Carlisle -- sounding very _restrained_ -- Jasper, and Alice again) before turning it off again. I pause for a moment, and then, in a fit of anger I'll never be able to explain, I open the window and throw it out.

I roll back over, and watch the shadows on the wall until they disappear completely.

It's a sunny day.


	2. looks like i gotta be hot and cold

_scratch_

ii. looks like i gotta be hot and cold

I begin (again) in Dijon, and it is not an auspicious start. First, it's summer, and the sun is still setting when the train comes to a halt for the final time. I've done all of the crosswords in the entire book, and then, out of boredom, started making up words in the back pages of the book. All of them look familiar, and all of them look alien.

I do not like the way I feel right now.

I wait for the train to clear, and then shuffle out at the back of the line. It's hard to fade into the crowd, but I try -- I keep my head down, curtain of hair hiding my face, hood up, hands wrapped in the blanket. I have the sneaking suspicion I look like I might have just killed someone. No one makes eye contact with me.

I keep thinking there might be some kind of... I don't know a _click_ of some kind, when I land in the right place. Like I'll somehow _know_ he's here if he's here. And, well, there might be, but I won't know if there isn't. It's exhausting, at the very least, to turn every corner with a gasp on the tip of my tongue, ready to see _surprise! _Edward, standing there. But he's not. On any streetcorner, dark or otherwise.

I'm on the side of town that Satan would keep his head down in, and it's getting close to midnight. I half-expect to see Batman up on a building, or swooping around somewhere. It's got that feel to it, like this is a place that could really use a selfless hero. I am not a selfless hero. I have no intention of being involved in anything except getting my husband back.

I hurry. I've been doing _so good_ for the past fifty years. I've had my head down low -- I had everything I wanted. I had a family, and good friends, and not many responsibilities, and I let other people deal with issues outside my world. I thought that would be _enough_.

I'm getting angry. I barely care enough to check it.

I find myself at a bar, a seedy kind of place, all metal and angles and glass. It has the look of a place that was beautiful and modern once, but gave up on itself halfway to the future. I turn heads when I walk in. A small part of me shrinks and wants to leave as soon as I've stepped inside, but I make my way to the bartender confidently and lean on the bar.

"What'll you be having?" He asks mildly, in a thick accent, taking care not to look down my shirt. The man next to me is not so considerate. I bite back a response.

"I'm looking for someone, actually," I reply slowly, with a tense smile, and describe Edward. The bartender shakes his head and insists that he hasn't seen anyone remotely matching that description. I thank him and half-consider ordering a martini, just so I could feel a little more normal, before remembering why I hate being normal in the first place.

Not every shot in the dark lands on target, I suppose. This is a fairly big city; there must be plenty of bars lurking around, waiting to snatch up unsuspecting passersby. I don't think this tactic is going to work very well, though -- my temper is getting shorter and shorter, and things will not go well for the next man who tries to get an eyefull. I'm halfway through a really satisfying _seethe_ when I hear the noise -- something like a cross between a whimper and a cry.

"Hello?" I ask quietly, shuffling in the direction the noise came from, a far-off corner of the street. I don't trust this place, and I'm unarmed to boot (though I could probably take anything that comes my way, a knife would hardly go amiss), so I move slowly, carefully. The noise comes again, softer this time, and weaker. "Hello? Is someone there?"

All of a sudden, I'm bombarded by a small girl, jabbering in completely incomprehensible French. I'm surprised and dismayed -- I never bothered to really _learn_ French. I can ask her how to find the bathroom like a _pro_, but I somehow doubt that's what she wants to hear.

Hmm.

I pull her a little closer to some light -- this street must have been paved back when gaslamps were standard or something, I _swear_, even _I'm_ having trouble seeing -- and I realize that the girl is covered in a mass of nasty gashes, bruises, and discolorings. She's sobbing hysterically. I don't have to be a doctor to see that she's in terrible shape, but I refuse to give into my vampire side and shuffle off her mortal coil myself.

"What happened to you?" I lean down to her level, and when I look in her eyes, I see something far more horrifying than any kind of demon or angel of death.

I see recognition.

--

"I don't know, I found her on the street. I barely speak any French, so I couldn't understand her at all." The doctors at the hospital are far from top-notch, but I'm still trying to stay under the radar and I doubt even the best doctors could do more than ease her suffering. I'm fighting very hard to rid myself of the look on her face, and of the knowledge that once, Ren was that small. Once, my daughter was this girl's age.

I blink, and vaguely wish for tears. Useless, generally speaking, but cathartic all the same.

"She's hysterical," the doctor replies, "she keeps trying to warn us about an imp that lives under Rue de Chatillon. She was alone when you found her?"

"Yes," I say, feeling -- oddly -- cold. "The street was dark, though. I didn't see if there was anyone else, and when she started panicking, I didn't really look. I just brought her here as fast as I could."

The doctor nods. "Her chances aren't so good. If we can get a name out of her, we'll start looking for next of kin. Until then..."

I fight back the urge to shudder. I haven't felt this _empty_ since I was turned and I haven't missed it. I wish Edward were here, or at least Carlisle, someone who might _know_ something. I just feel useless and alone.

"I'll... I'll stay here, at least for a while," I tell the doctor, for reasons I don't understand. I meant to say that I was going to go back to my own hotel, but that just... wasn't what came out. He looks up at me.

"You don't have to. You're no relation to the victim."

_Victim._ Of course. She didn't do this to herself, after all. I'm surprised at how heavy the word is, and how much it hurts -- hearing this little girl referred to as a victim somehow makes it all that more real (and the thought creeps in before I can contain it: _in another life, I could have done this to her_) and it's -- it's strangely painful. I swallow, hard. "I know, but... Someone has to be here, right? Better a stranger than no one."

The doctor nods again and leaves. I close my eyes and take a seat in the sterile waiting room. Like a mantra, I keep repeating the same sentence to myself -- I could have done this. Physically, I could have -- someone just like me, a vampire -- _one of us_. I try to control my thoughts, with little success. The air in here smells so _sharp_, so harsh, obscenely clean. Clinical.

I take a deep breath anyway.

This could easily be the work of a vampire gone rogue. And -- I can't stop the idea -- Edward appears to have gone rogue. I know he wouldn't do something like this, though. He's -- He's a _vegetarian_, for God's sake. He'd never attack a defenseless child. But it _could_ be someone like him, like us.

Or it could be a werewolf. Or just a really cruel person. Or a rabid dog. Or -- I'll probably never know. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm somehow connected to this attack, and not just because I found the -- the victim. This is ridiculous. I never thought I would hate a stupid word.

The ER waiting room is crowded for this time of night. There's a drunk eyeing me (and his sober friend holding him up), a haggard-looking woman who's staring at the television like it's going to save her, a young woman holding a half-asleep little boy, a man holding a rag over his arm. The usual suspects, I guess. I watch the window blankly. All I see are points of light, stars and streetlamps and windows, car headlights and flashlights and reflections. It all seems so distant and so close to me -- like if I could reach out _just a little further_ I'd be able to grab one of those dots and collect it, put it in a bag, and banish the darkness forever.

But I was never really that interested in banishing darkness.

I can't stop thinking. I don't even know why I'm here, just... some misplaced sense of responsibility, or grace. I don't know. I've made it a point to never self-analyze, but when I'm alone, thousands of miles from home or family, in a too-sterile hospital on the wrong side of a city I don't know, with the blood of a helpless _child_ smeared all over my hands and clothes -- I guess I just didn't know how I would react.

That look on her face -- she knew. When she looked into my eyes, she recognized what I am, and she was _scared._ That's why I can't shake the feeling that this has something to do with me or my kind. She was afraid of me. Strange, how that thought makes my stomach turn.

Worse, the thought that she had every reason to fear me.

I can't keep doing this to myself. I want to get out of Dijon. I want to get away from whatever it is that attacked that little girl, I want to find Edward, and I want to go _home._ And I want to be done with this. I can't save that girl, and whatever happened to her has nothing to do with me. I'm agitated and unsettled.

I watch the clock on the wall tick away the hours, agonizingly slow. A few new faces come and go, a gunshot victim, a pregnant woman who won't stop throwing up, another drunk guy who passes out on the chairs across from me. The points of light in the window wink out, one by one, until it's just the streetlamps and the occasional car headlight, flickering out of the gloom. It's going to be an overcast, foggy day, I can already tell.

It's fourteen minutes past three when the doctor returns and tells me that the little girl died on the operating table, and do I want to see her?

"No," I tell him quietly, and gather my things. "Thank you for trying."

"There aren't many people who will sit in the hospital all night for someone they don't know," he says. "You're a rare kind of woman."

I smile wanly at this, and reply, simply, "Not really. I just don't think anyone should have to die alone."

The streets are nearly empty. I take a seat at a deserted bus stop and watch the night around me, wishing for a little bit of morning, for something more than a far-off bit of light. The darkness feels suffocating, and haunting, and I can't explain why.

I'm still covered in blood.


	3. and supergirls don't cry

_scratch_

iii. and supergirls don't cry

My restlessness overcomes me about thirty minutes after sitting down, and I decide to walk -- at least for a while. There aren't any buses coming anytime soon, and movement is always better than staying still, right? Right.

I find myself in a restaurant, an all-night, mildly seedy kind of place, with dull, humming fluorescent lights and the tinny sound of old music that no one's listened to in years. The waitress looks defeated and so does the only man at the bar, like this is a sad place to be alone at 4:30 AM on a Friday night. I take a seat at the bar far away from the man, and order a coffee, for appearance's sake. The waitress doesn't speak English, but "une cafe" is easy enough for me to get across, even if my pronunciation probably made de Gualle roll over in his grave.

While it's brewing, I slip into the bathroom. It's kind of grimy, a little cramped, and very gray, with rough paper towels and cheap, single-ply toilet paper, and not much of either. They should be sufficient to clean the blood from my hands and arms, at least. My shirt is red, so at least the blood isn't too obvious -- it's still as good as ruined, but I shouldn't be getting any strange stares, at the very least. The jeans are another matter entirely. Maybe I can pretend it's paint?

God, I didn't realize just how much blood... I didn't really bother to evaluate myself while I was at the hospital, but for some reason I can't get past the _contaminated_ feeling that's overwhelming me right now. I thought I'd be used to blood by now. How ironic, the vampire who can't handle having blood on her hands.

This whole place stinks of iron and death.

In the mirror, I'm pale and -- for the first time since I was human -- I feel ugly, sick. I look like I've lost a fight with the devil. My hair is messy, sticky in places where I ran my hands through it, there are smears of blood and what I hope is only dirt on my face, my clothes are rumpled and unkempt. I make a sincere attempt to clean myself up, and it works, mostly, but I can't repair my mental state that easily.

Her eyes were blue. The girl -- they would have been pretty eyes, when she got older. Clear, bright blue eyes, the kind of eyes that men fall in love with and women envy. She wasn't _beautiful_ as far as children go, but she probably would have turned some heads at least. Pretty, maybe. I spare a moment to think of what might have happened to her, had she been given a future -- would she have gotten married? Maybe she would have become a librarian, helping little kids find books for school or entertainment.

I shouldn't be thinking like this.

By the time I get back to my seat, my coffee is half-cold. I play with it anyway, adding sugar and cream until it's a shade darker than milk. The mug is thick and short, filled with too little coffee to justify the cost (and I don't really have the money for this, but I'm not concerned with money). I drink it. I don't know why. It's far too sweet, far too rich, but I down it in one gulp, the vampiric version of self-harm, I suppose.

It makes my stomach turn violently. Abruptly, I stand, place five Euros at the cashier and leave without waiting for change or even my check. Behind the restaurant, in a darkened alley, I start vomiting uncontrollably until all taste of the impossibly sweet coffee is gone; in its wake, my mouth tastes of blood and bile.

Bitter and acidic, metallic and sharp, and strangely, the taste of salt, although I don't know where it comes from. I spit until the last of the vomit is on the road, and, shuddering, lean against the wall. It's starting to get close to dawn. I need to do something. I need to get out of this city.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, and I close my eyes to block out the sound.

I can go to Paris. Dijon was kind of a random destination anyway, but Paris -- Paris is a huge city, and it's easier to pretend to be sightseeing if I go to Paris. Blending in won't be so hard. I'm sure there's at least one coven in or around the city that I can contact, and if all else fails, I can at least get a hotel room with a TV and a weather broadcast so I'll know if it's safe to be outside. I'm running out of money, but there are cheap hotels, and I'm not really worried about safety.

Or -- Or I could go to Berlin, try to see if there's anyone in Germany. Or maybe Eastern Europe, see if "Dracula's Castle" has any leads. Or... Greece, I could go back south to Greece. It's times like these I wish I had a map of the world and a dart, so I could throw it and just go where the dart lands. It seems as good as anything at this point.

More thunder.

I try to relax and let my heart lead the way, but my heart tells me that I should go west, far west, all the way back home, to my down comforter and Ren's smile and Edward's arms. My heart is convinced that everything is all wrong, and it's correct, but I can't fix it from my down comforter. And if even my own intuition won't help me, then I'm really alone.

Paris. I'll go to Paris. It's a pointless direction, but anything is better than staying in this city.

The train station is ghostly empty, and the next train to Paris doesn't leave for another three hours. I don't mind waiting. The lights in the station are cold and white, the concrete has a web of slender cracks in it, and there's graffiti on one wall, some words scrawled in red that I don't understand. My eyes are drawn to it, the only color on a washed-out facade, an ugly mark on an otherwise blank canvas. The tracks are silver, a little rusted, but in good enough keep.

I half-expect to see "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" scrawled along the wall. It seems like that kind of place. The bench is all metal, extremely uncomfortable, and I wish I hadn't left my blanket on the train to Dijon. I'd like to have that small amount of comfort right now.

A policeman walks in, sees me, pauses, and then comes closer, cautiously. I look at him, intensely glad that I stopped to wash the blood off of my body, and ask (in halting, broken French) if he speaks English.

"Yes, some," he replies slowly, "Why are you here so early?"

"I... I need to get on the first train to Paris. I thought it came earlier." A lie, but a plausible enough one, if I don't mind the officer thinking I'm a complete moron. And right now, I really don't. He nods absently and looks past me, to the graffiti, and steps closer to it, apparently confused.

"Did you see who...?" He trails off, pointing to the wall. I shake my head, and the officer grunts in annoyance, before leaving the same way he came, muttering something in French. The encounter leaves me a little unsettled. It's not strange that the officer was here -- he was probably just passing through on a routine patrol -- but that he clearly hadn't seen the graffiti before strikes me as odd. That means it's recent.

I look toward it, still sitting in the bench. There are a few drops of paint on the ground, wispy and hasty, as though the artist was in a hurry. I make up my mind not to go look at the graffiti. I don't know French, it won't mean anything to me.

There's a map on the other side of me, and I decide to distract myself by looking at it. All roads seem to lead to Paris, a massive blob north of center, like a brain or a nucleus, like the eye of a great beast. The countryside is white, the roads a faded red color, green patches scattered at random around the map. It looks so... _normal._ The whole country, superimposed onto a flat surface, the entire ocean boiled down into a blue color on the left side of the paper, an entire city turned into a collection of reddish lines on a white background.

I glance out the doors and into the street. Thunder is becoming more and more frequent, and the dashes of light on the horizon are shadowed, hidden in the clouds and washed out by the ever-increasing flickers of lightning. The storm has almost reached Dijon. I shudder in spite of myself, and the graffiti draws my eyes again. I turn back to the map, hoping for... something. I think I want the roads to suddenly realign themselves, for the map to magically tell me "GO WEST ON ROAD A, TURN ONTO STREET B, AND ENTER BUILDING C, AND THERE WILL BE EVERYTHING YOU'RE LOOKING FOR."

It's a stupid hope, but then, I don't really think there's any other kind.

While the roads stay stubbornly where they're supposed to be, I take my seat again. A ticket-teller shows up, looking incredibly exhausted, but tries to perk up when she sees me. I ask her if she speaks English and she shakes her head, but passes me a sheet of times, in both languages.

At least something in this universe is being kind to me. I point to the earliest train for Paris, the teller nods, and I fork over a handful of Euros. I'm running out of money, and fast, and Paris is not a cheap place to be. I can't shake the feeling that I'm on top of a building that's on the verge of collapsing under my feet -- I'm desperate to escape but have nowhere to escape _to_ and nothing tangible to escape _from_.

My train won't be here for another two and a half hours, and it's bound to be a crowded one. I don't have the money to waste on a new blanket to hide under, nor for cheap word puzzles to waste my time on. So I sit.

Within a half an hour, the station has filled up with a crew of disaffected commuters, all in the same kinds of rumpled suits, all carrying the same coffees and the same purses and briefcases. It looks like a cross-section of a dystopian novel, all the mindless drones being processed by the robots to do mindless work until they're allowed to leave. None of them notice the graffiti, which makes me feel a little bit better, albeit not much, because I doubt this crowd would notice the apocalypse.

Idle, I make up a few stories for the people. That blond guy with the stained tie -- he spent all night at a mistress's house. His wife is currently pacing up and down their living room, wondering where he is and why he didn't come home, but his oldest son knows the truth. His youngest son knows too, but instead of getting angry or trying to comfort his mother, he'll pick his dad's tie up off the ground and scrub the lipstick off of it before his mother can find it. That youngest son, he's holding his parent's marriage together with a lie.

The woman in the red suit -- she's been trying to get her boss's eye for the past six months. Recently, she started wearing heels a little higher, shirts a little lower, skirts a little shorter. He hasn't noticed, but the guy on the other side of the train who hasn't taken his eyes off of her, he thinks that her boss is an idiot, and tries to get her to notice _him_ every morning on the train.

It's a pathetic way to pass the time, but at least it works. Before the woman in the red suit is fully on the train, the rain starts to fall, oddly melodic. It isn't a violent, angry rain, which means it's going to last all day. The thunder doesn't ease up.

After the wave of pencil-pushers comes the college students, up too early for classes they aren't so excited about. Some still in pajamas, some overdressed, shuffling in with mugs of coffee and backpacks and umbrellas, shaking off the storm. A couple of them notice the graffiti on the wall, a girl in glasses smirks, a boy with shaggy hair shakes his head at it.

This doesn't make me feel better.

It's 7 AM, my train arrives in a little less than a half an hour, and my curiosity gets the best of me. As another train arrives and another wave of commuters pushes around me, I finally look at the streak of red on the wall. It's strikingly meticulous, with brushstrokes, which is odd (I thought most graffiti was done with spraypaint, right?), but the handwriting is less careful, more of a scrawl. Like it was written in haste and then touched up, to make sure that it was read and understood.

The words -- _je ne regrette rien_ -- look vaguely familiar, and unsettling. Above me, almost lost in the screech of the train on the tracks and the mass of people around me, I hear laughter. I'm afraid. Down to the deepest part of myself, a terror creeping under my skin and twisting around my bones, I'm afraid in a way I can't remember ever being.

I look up and see nothing but black.

And I know that I cannot leave Dijon.


	4. if you'll be my star

_scratch_  
iv. if you'll be my star

I push through the crowds, wishing desperately for a hood or a blanket or _something _to cover my face. The rain doesn't bother me, but the last thing I want is to draw any attention to myself. I let my hair fall in a thick curtain over my face, casting my eyes low and peering through the strands to try and avoid running into people on the now-crowded streets. I'm lucky for the rain -- everyone else is in just as much a rush as I am, and no one is taking the time to notice anyone around them.

I don't quite know what I'm looking for, but the hollow twisting in my gut leads me back to that seedy bar -- now closing up, a few half-conscious drunks stumbling away to sleep the day off -- and into the alleyway behind it, where the girl was.

The rain is washing away the blood splattered on the wall, erasing the details of the crime. I peer over it, drawing on what knowledge I've gleaned from years of _Law and Order _reruns and crime shows, and the few things I picked up from Charlie. The splatter is scattered over wide arcs, like the girl was struck with a few glancing blows. There's too much for the attack to have been by a blood-drinker; no vampire would leave all this blood behind. There are deep grooves left in the wall and cobblestones, although what could have made such marks I have no idea. No knife would be sharp enough to cut straight through stone like that, would it?

"You don't look like the police," a thickly accented voice from behind me says. I flinch in spite of myself, and curse my distraction. What is with this place? People shouldn't be able to sneak up on me, but for some reason my senses are dulled, whether by grief or something else, I don't know.

I clench my jaw and turn. A woman is leaning against the wall, a cigarette dangling lazily from her lips. She's dressed like a businesswoman, but she has no purse or briefcase or anything to suggest that she has any intention of doing any business, here or elsewhere. She takes a deep drag from the cigarette and blows the smoke up, into the rain.

"I'm not. I just... I saw the blood," I tell her.

"You're lying," the woman replies without looking at me, chewing on the butt of her cigarette unconcernedly. I glare.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because you're covered in the same blood that's all over the wall," she says calmly, and walks forward, flicking a hand at my shoulder and kneeling at the wall, peering at the blood. "Did you do this?"

"No," I say. "But I'm looking for who did." The words spill out of my mouth before I have a chance to rein them in, and I know they're true, even though the thought hadn't occurred to me before just right now. My plans for finding Edward are falling a little more and more to the wayside. I try to justify it -- Edward would want me to help the little girl find what justice she can. He wouldn't want me to leave this alone, would he?

_He wouldn't want you to put yourself in danger over this, _a tiny, honest voice in the back of my head murmurs, _he would want you to come back to him._

The woman doesn't seem to notice my hesitation, or if she does, she doesn't mention it. "Why?" she asks disinterestedly. "You're no police officer."

I raise my chin. "I have my reasons."

She glances back at me, raising one eyebrow, and doesn't look impressed with what she sees. Finally, she sighs and stands, brushing off her skirt and crushing her cigarette beneath her heel. "Fair enough, _nosferatu_," she says ambiguously. My skin crawls. What did she just call me?

"What -- "

"Oh, please," she replies, "you thought you weren't obvious? I'm impressed at your restraint, though. All these people, all this blood, and you're, how do you say it? Cool as a cucumber." She smirks, and I catch sight of her eyes -- red. _Oh._

I recoil slightly. "What are you looking for here?"

"Same thing you are," she says, walking forward purposefully and reaching out her hand. "My given name is Mercedes, but mostly people just call me Rouge."

I give her black hair an appraising look. "Why do they call you Red?"

She shoots me a nearly feral grin. "Because I remind them of the c_avalier rouge_," she says impishly. At my blank look, she clarifies, "The Red Horseman, of the Apocalypse. War."

I do not want to be around this woman.

"Oh?" I say lamely. "Why is that?"

"Because," she tells me airily, waving a hand uncaringly, "I have a nasty tendency to always be where the fights are."

"Which is why you're here, I assume?"

"Give a point to the American Vegetarian," she says, clapping slowly. I glower at her; the nickname she's given me is laced with light contempt. "Do you have a name, or shall I be forced to call you by a bevy of creative nicknames?"

"Bella," I tell her, through clenched teeth. "Just... Bella."

Red cocks an eyebrow. "Well, _Bella_," she says slowly, that same light contempt drenching her voice, "since we're after the same prey, I suggest we work together, yes? By the way," she asks suddenly, tapping at her chin, "what is an American Vegetarian doing in Dijon, hunting supernatural murderers?"

"I was looking for someone," I say shortly, "but the little girl... I found her."

She doesn't look convinced, but doesn't press the issue. Instead, she waves her hand at me, gesturing to follow. "Well, then Bella dear, let's get this murder solved so you can go back to finding whoever it is you're hunting. But first," she says, stretching, "we need to lay low until tonight."

"Is it wise to waste that much time?" I ask, desperate to assert some kind of control over this strange and unnerving woman. She shrugs.

"Whatever attacked the girl did it at night, so it won't come out until then. Besides, we can't very well wander around in the daylight, can we? It's not... _befitting _of our kind."

"It's raining," I protest, "and the clouds are thick. We'll be fine."

Red's eyes darken as she looks at me oddly. "I don't know what kind of people you live with across the pond, _ma fille_, but here, the people are suspicious, especially in these parts. They do not trust pale outsiders with strange eyes. We need to lay low." She casts me another disappointed look, "How did you expect to survive here, anyway? You know _nothing _about this city, do you?" She peers at me. "Do you even know French?"

"No," I hiss bitterly. Red scoffs, and I bite back the urge to lunge at her throat.

"_Ma fille,_" she says, clapping a hand on my shoulder, "you're lucky I found you."

I don't feel lucky. In fact, I feel more angry, and lonelier than ever. Is this what the world is really like? I haven't missed much, have I? God, I just want to go back _home, _where there are no condescending French vampires and no scary supernatural things attacking poor little girls and no blood all over my favorite sweater, where I can curl up on the couch next to my husband and watch movies, where nothing -- and no one -- can hurt me or mock me or belittle me.

The flat that Red owns is not far from the seedy bar, up on the highest level of a dingy apartment complex with a glowering doorman and a creaky, dimly-lit elevator. I am, I admit, a little thrown off. What is going on? I had this image in my head that all vampires were at least somewhat wealthy, having unlimited time to earn money -- and I've seen nothing yet do shake this image. Until now.

Her room is at the far end of a very eerie hallway, and we have to step over a man slumped over in the hallway. Red barely even seems to see him, but I study him a bit. He's drooling, sprawled out like he got all the way to his apartment and just gave up on finding his keys. His clothes are dirty and ragged and I notice that the crook of his elbow is bruised and inflamed, and there are several small, dark puncture wounds in the very center of the blackened mass. A drug addict.

"You coming? Sean will be there all day, you can examine him later." I glance up, startled, at the fact that Red even knows this junkie's name. Distastefully, I step over his legs, and I'm startled when he suddenly catches my ankle and peers into my face intently.

"What are you -- " I begin, but he cuts me off.

"Elaine?" he says hoarsely, thickly, drool forming on his lips and dripping down his chin. I recoil, trying to escape his grasp without hurting him. He begins babbling in French, a strange kind of energy in his words that isn't spreading to his limbs. I can't even bring myself to pity the man. He's done this to himself, hasn't he?

Red comes over and kneels next to him, prying his hand off my ankle and murmuring soothingly to him in French. His eyes focus, briefly, on his face, and he reaches a hand up to caress her cheek, whispering the name _Elaine _over and over again. Red gently takes his hand and makes a soft _shush_ing sound, petting his head like a mother and guiding him to his feet. She slips a hand into his pocket and takes his keys, unlocking his door and leading him inside, laying him down on a ragged couch -- like she's done this a million times before.

"All right then," she says shortly, once she's back in the hall, drawing the door shut behind her with a very final-sounding _click._ "Let's get out of here."

I follow numbly, unsure how to react to this new development. Red's apartment is sparsely furnished, but clean, with thick curtains over the windows and a number of lamps and sconces littering the room. There is, strangely enough, a large painting that looks like it wandered right out of the Middle Ages, depicting a woman floating in a river, surrounded by flowers -- Ophelia, I wonder? Something about the painting unnerves me.

"What was that," I ask distractedly, trying to focus anywhere but on the painting. Red busies herself in the kitchen area, cleaning the counter with an odd expression. "With the -- Sean, I think? You know him?"

She shrugs. "He's always stuck in the hall like that," she answers breezily, "too stoned to get into his own flat."

"Where does he come up with the money to fuel his addiction?" I wonder. Red gives me a strange look, like she's seeing me for the first time.

"Are you always this apathetic toward humans?"

This startles me. We're _vampires_, better than them in every way. Why does she think it's strange that I don't care about humans? "Yes," I reply uncaringly, "Why does that matter?"

Red scrutinizes me, that same strange look on her face, "But you're one of those stupid vegetarians. Why go through all the trouble if you don't care about them?"

I gape at her. "I don't want to _hurt _them. Just because I don't care doesn't mean I want to -- to _eat _them alive!"

"No," she says suddenly, her expression closed, "you don't care that much."

"What?"

She sighs. "You don't care enough to attack them, do you? To you, they're just... ants. Ants invading your happy little picnic of vampire life."

I don't know how to respond. She's not -- she's not _wrong_, I realize, while at the same time, she isn't precisely _right_, either. I do care about people, enough to protect them, but at the same time, their suffering is meaningless to me. Red seems to see that I'm not going to reply, and drops into a plush, overstuffed chair with a sigh.

"If we're going to be stuck here for twelve hours of the day, we may as well get to know each other," she says resignedly, like she'd love to do anything but speak to me.

"All right," I say and sit on the couch primly, obstinacy rising in me, "you go first."

She makes an annoyed noise at the back of her throat and snatches a pack of cigarettes off the table, wrenching one out of the pack and lighting it with a match. I wrinkle my nose.

"What does a vampire get out of cigarette smoking?" I muse aloud. Red snorts.

"The same thing humans do, I guess. Something to do with your hands, and a quick burst of calm, except I don't die from lung cancer," she mumbles around the cigarette, laying over the chair lazily, legs over one armrest and leaning against the other. "Win-win situation, yeah?"

"If you can handle the awful smell," I say distastefully.

"You get used to it, and then it starts to smell good," she replies without concern for my obvious discomfort, taking a deep drag and blowing it straight at me. "Oh, lighten up, America," she laughs, "you're so high-strung. You're young, aren't you? Only a young vampire would be so... prim."

"If sixty is young," I tell her delicately, trying to convey my utter dislike for Red.

She shrugs, "It's pretty young. Older than I thought, but hey, you're American, what do I know?"

"And how old are you?" I ask, more to fill the silence than because I actually care to know.

"About two hundred, give or take," she waves a hand thoughtlessly, "I don't really count anymore. I was born in the Paris slums during the Industrial Revolution."

So. She's older than I had expected, which is strange. Red seems to exude an odd kind of agelessness, as though she was born both ten years ago and a thousand years ago. Nothing about her screams either maturity or immaturity, even though her attitude has definite shades of teenage rebellion, it's tempered with a resigned knowledge -- like she's seen the whole world and found it lacking.

"So tell me," she says suddenly, breaking into my thoughts, "what are you really doing here? And don't give me that 'I'm looking for someone' _connerie_, because I can always tell when people are lying."

"Is that your power?" I ask, evading the question, partly because I'm offended at her off-hand dismissal of my excuse and partly because I'm no longer entirely sure of the answer.

"Yes, it is, and stop avoiding the question."

I sigh. "My husband... he disappeared. I went to Volterra to see if the Volturi knew anything, and they didn't, so I hopped the first train in the first direction that looked even a little promising, and decided to see what turned up."

Red raises an eyebrow. "You just threw everything to the wind and rushed out into the unfeeling depths of France to see if you could find a hint of your husband?" I nod defiantly, refusing to be made to feel like an idiot. She snorts. "You've got more balls than I thought, but less brains. What happened to your husband?"

"I told you," I hiss, angry, "he disappeared."

"And what makes you think he disappeared, and didn't just... leave you?"

I bite back a ferocious response, instead settling on a smoldering glare, and answer with as much control as I can muster, "Because he _loves _me."

Red snickers. "All right, _cherie_, whatever you say."

Her words send me into a spiral of doubt. What if... What if he really did just _leave..._ What if -- No. I can't be thinking like this. Focus on one thing at a time, Bella, and right now that thing is _not _Edward's disappearance.

"What do you know about the thing that attacked the little girl?" I ask suddenly. Red crushes her cigarette against the carpeting uncaringly, and I flinch inwardly at the damage she's doing to her apartment.

"All right then, Bells, we can change the subject." I grimace at having been so easily read. "In a word? Nothing. I just know that something's very, very wrong about that bar, and that alley. Something out for adorable-human blood, and it's not one of us."

"Why do you care?"

She shoots me an incredulous look. "Did you hear me? _It's not a vampire_. Do you understand how bad this could be? What if it starts attacking _us?_ Or what if those stupid, superstitious humans catch wind of this and attack us, thinking we did it? Or what if it takes all of the _food?_ Didn't you ever learn _biologie?_ Two species cannot occupy the same niche in a single habitat."

Her condescending tone is really starting to grate on my nerves. "Yes, but why do _you _care?"

There's a beat. Red's eyes grow shadowed. She rips another cigarette out of the pack and lights it furiously before answering, "Because no one else does."


End file.
